'The Daily Show' recap - 9/20

On the September 20 episode of The Daily Show, Jon Stewart discussed the recent discovery about Jesus’ marital status, unemployment for veterans and Clinton’s speech and conference.

Stewart opens with a brief story about the Coptic papyrus potentially mentioning Jesus’ wife. There are a few other lines, but the one of most interest only says “Jesus says, “My wife…” Stewart mentions that this is a scrap without much behind it. He finishes the sentence a number of ways, but my favorite was “Jesus says, “My wife? No, I’m not married.”

That segment finishes quickly, though, and he moves on to the main story of the episode, legislation to help unemployed veterans. Stewart reports that a bill went before the Senate to help get work for unemployed veterans at places like fire and police stations. This failed to pass which clearly baffled Stewart. He showed a clip of one senator who said that he and others voted against it because of money issues, saying that it was being paid for by questionable shuffling in the budgets. Stewart points out the hypocrisy in this, since this bill was going to be paid for with fines from medicare providers who failed to pay taxes and the wars that made these individuals veterans were paid for with budgetary shenanigans.

The last fifteen minutes or so of the episode was Stewart’s interview with former President Bill Clinton. It was definitely one of the better interviews I have seen on the show recently and Clinton’s charisma and, more importantly, his competence are on display. They start out discussing his speech at the Democratic National Convention and some of the work and thought that went in to it. Clinton talks about not worrying about eloquence in favor of facts and making an effort to treat his audience as adults who understand and need the information.

They also very briefly discussed candidate Mitt Romney’s campaign before moving on to the Clinton Global Initiative and the diverse group that will be participating in it. This includes the president of Walmart, since Walmart is the leading business in using solar panels and even has some wind powered locations. Finally, they discuss Clinton’s thoughts, and some facts, on job creation. It is a very interesting and rather uplifting interview (which has an extended version online, of course) and I recommend it to everyone, but especially anyone with a general sense of foreboding about international relations or the economy.